Pope Leo: Lay people help Church Reach All and Promote Peace

Vatican, April 2, 2026: Speaking during the Wednesday General Audience in St. Peter’s Square on April 1, Pope Leo XIV said laypeople play a vital role in building a Church that reaches out to all and promotes the Gospel along with justice, charity, and peace.

“The vast field of the lay apostolate is not confined to the Church, but extends to the world,” Pope Leo underlined.

“The Church is present wherever her children profess and bear witness to the Gospel: in the workplace, in civil society and in all human relationships, wherever they, through their choices, show the beauty of Christian life, which foretells here and now the justice and peace that will be accomplished in the Kingdom of God.”

Continuing his catechesis on the Documents of the Second Vatican Council, Pope Leo XIV reflected on the 1964 Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen gentium. He emphasized the essential role of laypeople in shaping a Church that “goes out,” a term often used by Pope Francis to describe a Church present in history and always open to its mission of witnessing to the Gospel.

Equality of all the Baptised

Pope Leo noted that the fourth chapter of Lumen gentium explains “in positive terms, the nature and mission of the laity, after centuries in which they had been defined simply as those who are not part of the clergy or the consecrated life.”

Citing Pope Francis, he said that “lay people are, put simply, the vast majority of the people of God,” while ordained ministers are fewer and serve them. He explained that the mission of the laity is rooted in the unity of the People of God, who share the same dignity in Christ. Before any distinctions of role or vocation, the Council affirms the equal dignity of all the baptized.

“The Constitution does not want us to forget what it had already affirmed in the chapter on the People of God, namely that the condition of the messianic people is the dignity and freedom of the children of God.”

People of God is not a Formless Mass

Highlighting their mission, Pope Leo pointed out that the Council presents the laity as active participants both in the Church and in the world. Quoting Lumen gentium, he said they “are in their own way made sharers in the priestly, prophetical, and kingly functions of Christ; and they carry out for their own part the mission of the whole Christian people.”

He explained that the People of God is not an undefined crowd but the Body of Christ, described by St. Augustine as the Christus totus, meaning the whole Christ.

The Pope added that this community is organically structured through the relationship between the common priesthood of all believers and the ministerial priesthood. Through Baptism, he said, the lay faithful share in Christ’s priesthood.

In conclusion, Pope Leo recalled that St. John Paul II, in Christifideles laici, highlighted how the Council profoundly articulated the dignity, mission, and responsibility of the laity, calling them to active participation in the Church’s apostolate.

"May the Easter we are preparing to celebrate renew in us the grace to be, like Mary Magdalene, like Peter and John, witnesses of the Risen One," Pope Leo concluded.

Courtesy: Vatican News